Sunday 19 October 2025

Nollamara Church Of Christ Sermons. Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: 19^th October 2025

Speaker: Jamie Boland

Sermon Title: A Sword, a priest, and a throne

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16

 Today's reading is from Hebrews chapter four, verses 12 to 16. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit drawings and marrow if judges, the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid back before the eyes in whom we must give a count. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess for. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are.

Yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in a time of need. Here, hear the words from the Holy Bible.

Okay. Thank you, Catherine. As I said earlier today, we're concluding our series on planting seeds where. Planting seeds for the future of the church as we seek the Lord in prayer. Now, while we're wrapping up this sermon series, I don't want us in any way to conclude our focus on prayer. Please. We need to keep praying.

Okay. The purpose of this series has been to embed a vision and help, you know, create a culture, build a culture of prayer. Okay? We want to see God move. Yes, we need to see God move. And so what we're gonna do is we keep moving forward week by week is we're gonna keep it. Simple. Keep it real and keep it up.

Wonderful. Now, the title of our message today is A Sword, a Priest, and a Throne. Now, I dunno about you, when I first thought of this title, it sounds like the, you know, the, the title of some cheesy 1980s, no sword and fantasy type film. But I can assure you it's straight from the word of God. Let's commit this time to our Lord.

Father, we have so much to thank you for. Thank you for that song that we sang before to turn our Eyes upon Jesus. May we behold You, Jesus. May we look to you, may our faith be strengthened as we do that. Father, we thank you for this time to gather around your word, spirit of the living God, full afresh.

Speak life in Jesus' name. Amen. Now I wanna start today by doing something different. I want to use an object lesson that I've used in the past. I used to use this in Africa with my ministry students. Now I'm gonna demonstrate today that I can read your mind. Who believes that I can read your mind. Now, I think we've got some skeptics here, but I'm gonna prove without doubt with, you know, that I can read your mind.

Now, I did this actually at the men's breakfast we had, I think last year with a Spanish church. So if you've seen this before, just, just bear with us. Keep it to yourself. Now, I'm gonna choose two volunteers to reinforce the first time's. Not a fluke, but I can actually read your mind. So I firstly volunteered, um, Wendy.

Now Wendy, what I want you to do is to pick a number between one and 15. It needs to be a whole number. Don't tell me that number. Just whisper it to sue. I'll look away. Okay. Whisper it to Sue. Sue's gonna help you as we do the object lesson. You got your number. Lovely. Just don't tell me. Okay? Now what we're gonna do, I can read your mind.

I'm gonna prove it. There's your numbers right now. Tell me and Sue, you can help. Wendy, is your number in the first column down? It is, yes. Is it in the second column down? Yes. Yes. Is it in the third column down? Yes. Oh, and is it in the last column? No. Okay. Now I need complete silence. The greatest gift a man can have is to read a woman's mind.

I'm looking, I'm looking sh I need quiet. I need quiet. I'm looking. I can see it's like a teenager's bedroom. There's stuff everywhere. Um, I can see a number seven. Ah, I can read her mind now to prove it's not a fluke. We're gonna do it again. This time I'm gonna choose Grant. Grant. Choose the number between one and 15.

Whisper it to Linda. She's gonna help you. Okay. I'm not cheating. Is it in the first column down? No. No. Is it in the second column down? No. Oh, is it in the third column down? Yes. And is it in the last column? It is. Oh, okay. Quiet please. Oh wow. This is unlike a teenage teenager's bedroom. There's nothing there.

It is like, I'm looking, looking. I see a number. 12. 12, was it? Yes. 12. Okay. So I proved without a doubt that I can read people's minds now. Who believes that I can really read your mind. Do you believe that? No. Okay. Of course I can't. But here's the thing. God can. God can read your mind. Now, that's a bit of a scary thought, isn't it?

Now, can you imagine what life will be like if people around us could see inside our heads and know what we're thinking? Could you imagine what they'd be like if the person around you could see every angry thought, every lustful thought, every jealous thought, every fear, every doubt. Imagine if the person seated next to you could, you know, read your mind and know what it is you're thinking about them.

Okay, this is not a good way to live. Someone could look into your mind and see who you really are. You'd probably be too afraid to leave the house, and yet the reality is God can read your mind and not just your mind. He knows the inclinations of your heart. All this stuff that we seek to hide from others, the stuff that they can't see, God sees it all.

Now, the very first time I did this was with a, you know, a group of young children, a Sunday school group, and we had some fun. And when I told them that I can't actually read your mind, but God can, man, you should have seen their faces, you know, the looks of horror. And when I would do this in Africa, some of my students, they really thought that what I had done is looked inside their mind.

So they would actually accuse me of black magic. You know, in their minds they're thinking, teacher, you said, you look inside my mind. You did. You must have used witchcraft again. To me, that's a good practical illustration of the difference in our worldviews. Okay. We look at this and we think there must be some sort of perfectly logical explanation.

You know? 'cause we have a irrational scientific worldview. Africans have a very different PERS perspective, a different worldview now, in case you haven't already worked it out. The solution is quite simple. Okay? Can you see the numbers at the top? They add up to 15. And so all I need to do is remember which column you said your number was in, and then just add up the number at the top of that column.

That's all I did. Okay. There's no, no trick to this. There's no black magic. For sure. I can, I can assure you your pastor's not dabbling in the dark arts. Okay. Now let's listen again to the words we heard at the start of our reading for the word of God is living. And active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. God's word is not static. Ink on an ancient page. It is alive and it is permeated with the authority of God. It's a word that's so sharp that it can see right through us and penetrate us from every single angle.

Again, that's what the author meant when they said it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow. When we open the Bible, the Bible opens us. We open the Bible and it opens us. Yes. Has that ever been your experience? You come before scripture and it has a way of penetrating you. That's what a double-edged sword does.

It cuts through us unlike anything else. We come to God's word, we open it up and it exposes all that stuff that we try, oh, so hard to repress, to push down and hide from others. It'll expose our pride, our hypocrisy, our selfishness. You come before the light of God's word, the probing gaze of God's word and the authority of it.

It holds all this stuff up from our soul like a mirror. But here's the problem. We humans don't like having our darkness exposed, do we? We're quite content to keep all that stuff hidden and not deal with it because dealing with stuff is painful. Dealing with stuff hurts. It can hurt like hell when God's word puts his finger on something in our lives that needs to be confronted.

Now think about a surgeon scalpel. When placed in skillful hands, it can cut us open to expose what lies beneath. Usually it's something disease, something rotten, something that needs to be, you know, treated or removed. In the very same way, God's word cuts us open to correct cleanse and heal. But here's the catch.

Unlike the hospital when God does his thing, God doesn't use anesthesia. You ever found that? Yes, God's got his finger on something in your life and he needs to deal with it. You give yourself to God and God doesn't use anesthetic. God does his greatest work in our life and it can hurt. Jesus said, I am the true vine.

My father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it so that it will be even more fruitful when God's at work in your life when he's doing his thing, it's like surgery minus the anesthesia. Now, if I was to ask you to raise your hand, if you want to grow in the Lord and be mature and complete, you'd say, yes, that's me.

But can I tell you, you don't get growth without pain. And so we don't like the pain, so we pull away. And guess what? We don't grow. The greatest growth in my life, and I know for sure in your life, has been those seasons of difficulty and pain. Amen. Amen. Amen. So what do we do? What do we do if it's all too much?

You know this feeling of being undone by God's word as it penetrates and judges you, what do you do? Can I tell you? The solution is simple. Take your Bible, close it, put it on the shelf, and let it gather some dust. Keep it up on that shelf and don't allow the sword of the spirit to, you know, pierce you anymore.

Problem solved. Problem solved. What if I told you there's an even bigger problem? An even bigger problem than the light of God's word, probing and piercing through your soul. What if I told you there's an even bigger problem than that? Verse 13, nothing. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Kind of come to terms with that. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him, to whom we must give an account. Now, this word uncovered that I've highlighted is the Greek word, Gina. Can you see which word do we get from that in English? The word gymnasium. Okay. Do you know what the Greeks were when they went to the, the gym back in the day?

Nothing. Nothing. They stripped down an exercise naked. That's, that's, that's why the Jews rebelled against Hellenism. You know, I watched an episode of the Chosen the other day and one of the guys is working on his muscles and he said, what are you gonna do? Go to the gym? And it was meant as an insult because they stripped down naked and exercise.

Here's my point. We can close God's word to avoid feeling exposed, but the fact is everything, everything in all creation is naked and laid bare before the eyes of him, to whom we must give an account. Now, do you hear what this is saying? It's saying closing the Bible won't work. You can put it on the shelf to avoid feeling exposed, but there is a final day coming when all things are gonna be brought out into the open by the God who sees everything.

Before the eyes of God, we are completely, utterly naked and undone. Now, I dunno about you, but this does not inspire confidence in me. It inspires fear. When I consciously stop and think about out. Everything about me is naked before the eyes of God. It leaves me feeling vulnerable and it makes me want to create as much distance as I possibly can between me and God as if that's even possible.

The last thing, the very last thing I want to do is bring myself into the light of God's presence. Now, think back to the garden. Adam and Eve were naked and without shame. Naked and without shame, they could behold one another. There's nothing hidden. It's all exposed. But as soon as they sinned, their eyes were open.

What happened? They realized they're naked. And when God came calling, what did they do? They ran and hid. They did what we do. That's what we do. We feel the sting of our nakedness and we don't turn to God. We turn away from God. We should run to God. We run from God. Now, if all we had are these two verses, Hebrews chapter 12 and 13, then there'd be no comfort in God's word at all.

There's only terror and the shame of exposure, and we are feeling this right now. Yeah, we're feeling the sting of all this. So where's the good news here? I'm glad you asked, verses 14 to 16. Therefore, because of all this, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

If we don't have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who's been tempted in every way just as we are yet was without sin, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. Nothing I've said so far has inspired confidence. Let us then, because of all this approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time.

Of need. Now, let me paint a picture. Imagine you get on a plane, you go to the USA, you're visiting Washington dc, you're in a higher car. You drive past the White House, and you're thinking to yourself, man, I've come a long way. I've paid a lot of money. I've come all this way. Maybe I should pop in and say hi to Donald as I'm driving past the White House.

Okay? Is that gonna happen? What do you see as you're driving past the White House? You see the fences, the gates, the security guards, the blockades. What do they communicate to you? What do all those things say? They tell you You can't come in here. You are not welcome. Everything about the White House screams at you that this area is restricted, it's off limits, and that your presence is just not welcome.

Your persona, non grata. Now imagine you're thinking, hang on. Now I've come a long way. Imagine. You think, okay, I'm gonna ignore all of that and try to enter uninvited. Just imagine you ignore the warning signs. You climb the fence, you dodge the secret service agents, and you march right into that oval office.

Can I tell you? At best you'd be tackled and restrained for questioning. At worst, you probably end up in a body bag. That's what's gonna happen. And probably the exact same thing would happen if you decided to go to London and drop in uninvited on Charles and Camilla at Buckham Palace. And you might say, well, hang on.

They're people just like us. But they are very important people. Very important people. And what that means is that Joe Average just can't rock up unannounced and expect to waltz ride in. Okay? You want an audience with the president or the king. There are a set of rules and protocols that dictate who can come and who can't come.

That's the way things are. In contrast. In contrast, this passage in Hebrews tells us that the king of kings and the Lord of the universe, he has an open door policy when it comes to us, his children. Amen. Do we believe that? Do you seriously believe that you can't go to the White House and visit Don? You can't visit Charlie and Camilla at Buckingham Palace, but you can come before the king of the universe who lives in the most holy place.

Do you believe that? Now, here's the thing. This is something we can believe in our minds. We can believe Jesus has made a way for us to come into God's presence. Yet in practice we don't come. You weren't expecting that, were you? No, we don't come because the light of God's presence has a way of exposing who we truly are and it can expose our darkness.

And so what we sometimes do, and I know I've done it so I know I'm speaking for all of us here, what we can do is we can hang back until we feel better about ourselves. God, I'm not gonna come right now. I don't feel so good about who I am. God, what I'm gonna do is somehow clean myself up to make myself more presentable to you.

You have a thought like that? Yeah. We believe we can come, but we don't because in practice we think, God, right now, I don't like my spiritual state. And so what we're gonna do is we're just gonna hang back and wait as if we can somehow, somehow clean ourselves up, tidy up our lives, and make ourselves presentable to God.

That's not something we'd give lip service to, but in reality, that's what we practice and live. Okay, so you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll clean myself up. God. Then I'll come. I feel unclean. I feel unworthy. I'll come when I just feel better about myself. I'll come when I feel worthy. As if we ever could make ourselves worthy.

Listen again to verse 14. Since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. Our confidence in entering God's presence is not based on how we feel about ourselves. Or how well we've managed to tidy up our lives. It's based solely on who's gone before us, the sinless son of God.

He's made a way you can enter because of the one who's gone before you. Amen. Now, understand what a priest does. A priest stands in the gap between people and God. They're, they're mediators. A priest represents us before God, and the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is a great high priest. He's not a high priest.

He's a great high priest. He's not like the temple priests who have to first make an offering for their own sin before they can enter God's presence. What Jesus has done, he's gone before us. He's offered himself, and it's his perfection that allows us to come. It's his perfection that's opened up the way, and the writer of Hebrews says, this is the faith you profess.

Yes. This is the faith we profess. Yeah, this is the faith that you need to hold firmly onto. He doesn't say, just hold onto it loosely. You know? Have you ever shaken hands with someone and you know, it's like a wet fish. There's no human contact. It's like, hold me firmly. I wanna feel something. This is the way you need to hold onto the faith.

You profess not, not lightly, not limply. Hold onto it, clinging to it. Hold on firmly to this faith that says we will always be sinners in need of a savior. Do you know I love Colossians chapter two verses six and seven. It says, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue in him rooted and built up.

Do you know what we do? When we first come to know Jesus, we accept that he accepts us as we are sinners in need of nothing but grace. All we bring to the table is the sin that led him to that cross. And we accept that God accepts us that way. But as we go on in our Christian walk, guess what? Oh, I'm so sinful.

God couldn't accept me as I am right now. And Colossians two says, just as you received him as Lord, continue that same way in him. Don't think you have to somehow clean things up before you can come. This is not the faith we're called to hold onto. The faith we're called to hold onto, says I will always be a sinner in need of a savior.

I can't clean myself up. It's the faith that says God accepts me despite who I am. It's the faith that says God accepts me only because of Jesus Christ. And Christ alone. That is the faith we hold onto. Amen. And maybe you're thinking, but Pastora, you know, you just don't understand. You don't understand what I'm going through.

You don't understand how weak and sinful I can feel at times. How can I possibly come before God when I keep doing the things that I do? How can I possibly come? I can say, maybe you're right. Maybe I don't understand. Can I tell you? Jesus does. Jesus understands what you're going through? Verse 15, we do not have a high priest.

Who's unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who's been tempted in every way just as we are yet was without sin. Think about the kings of this earth. They grow up in the luxury of the palace. They privilege, they dunno poverty. They don't know the stuff, the struggles their subjects go through.

They're born distant, removed from, you know, everything. They've got a silver spoon in their mouth, not Jesus. He felt hunger. He felt rejection. He felt grief, and he experienced the full range of human temptation. In fact, he felt it to a much higher degree of intensity because unlike us, he never gave in and yielded to sin.

I like what CS Lewis says about all this. Let me read. He says, only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. Do you get that? When I give myself over to sin, that's easy. That little bit of temptation comes. I cave in. I don't experience the full strength and power of temptation if I give in quickly.

Only those who resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would've been like an hour later.

We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it. And Christ because he was the only man who never yielded to. Temptation is the only man who knows to the full. What temptation means, this is our great high priest who can sympathize with our weakness.

The one who stands before the throne of God for us, for you, for me, was tempted in every way yet was without sin. Now think of this word, sympathize. Okay. The first part, SYM sim, it comes from the Greek word, which means together. Path comes from pathos, which means feeling or suffering. If he can sympathize with us, he understands how we're feeling, how we're struggling together, not immune, not distant, not remote.

He understands what we go through.

And he knows how you feel as you're going through it. Jesus understands your weaknesses and he asks that you draw near to him in that weakness, not God. Once I get myself feeling strong and good about myself, then will I come, come in weakness. That's what it's saying. It is saying you can trust Jesus with the darkest parts of your heart because he's been there.

He's been tempted in the same way for feeling lost. Will tell him if you're feeling angry, tell him. If you lack the faith to believe, tell him he sees it all anyway. Yeah, don't try to hide it and don't hold back and pull away. And try and fix yourself and then come. Can I tell you, you have no idea how weak your pastor is.

You wanna see me as I'm preparing my sermons. I am weak. I am on my knees. I'm walking around, I'm praying, God, you've gotta do something. I'm powerless. You've got to help me. You've no idea how weak I am. Jesus sees it though, when Jesus knows and when I'm struggling in those moments, I'm saying, God, you gotta help me.

You've gotta come through God. I'm feeling this. I don't try and hide it from him anymore, but I used to. I just bring it and say, God, I'm feeling this. I'm feeling right now that I could relieve the stress that I'm under by going down this path. God, you gotta help me. Before I used to say, oh, I shouldn't feel this way, and I try to do it myself.

That's not the way to victory. Are you with me now? Do you know what our problem is? Is we don't like feeling weak? Yeah, we don't like feeling weak. We hate weakness and we don't want anything to do with it. And what we can do is we can wrongly begin to believe that God doesn't want anything to do with it either, dear.

We can wrongly begin to believe that God doesn't want anything to do with my weakness. Can I tell you? Nothing can be further from the truth. Yes, listen to these quotes from American Pastor Paul Washer. He says, there are no great men of God, only weak little men of a great and merciful God. If God were any other way, I would have no other place to turn.

I like that. And again, there are no great men or women of God. There are only tiny, broken, weak, feeble men of a great and merciful God. To this, we can only say amen. Amen. And to this, God says, come, come. I've made a way. Come into my presence. Come as you are weak, broken, feeble, come knowing because you're accepted in Jesus.

Come in faith because you are not gonna feel it, but you need to come in faith. I like what Chip Ingram says. Your failures don't lessen God's love. Your successes don't increase it. His love is unchanging. Can I remind you, God's love isn't on a sky, a sliding scale based on your performance. You don't earn it when you're doing good and you don't lose it when you blow it.

You are fully loved on your worst day, and you are fully loved on your best day. Why? Because his love is rooted in who he is, not in who we are. Amen. And can I tell you when we finally begin to understand this, and maybe we'll stop trying to impress God 'cause that's what we're trying to do. How do you impress the one who made all things by speaking a word you, you don't.

When we understand this, we'll probably try and stop impressing God and we'll actually start really walking with him as we are open, exposed, accepted, beloved. God doesn't shy away from all the, the stuff that we can shy away from. He embraces it because Jesus, because of Jesus. Based on all this, the writer of Hebrews says, let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence.

I love this so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Now, there's two exhortation in this passage. Let us hold firmly to the faith that we profess hold onto it, live by it, enter God's presence through it. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. It's almost like with a swagger and an arrogance, but it's without fear.

It's with certainty that we're accepted. We may feel sinful and exposed, but we don't come before a throne of judgment. We come before a throne of grace. Why? Because the cross has changed everything. Think of the story of Queen Esther, okay? She's not approaching her husband, she's approaching the king.

She's approaching the king and her necks on the line. She did it for the salvation of her people in the same way when Jesus approached the cross. He approached it for our salvation. He did it to make a way to find, for us to find grace and mercy in our time of need, including those moments, especially those moments when we feel at our very worst.

He sees US wars and all, and he holds open this invitation to come to speak openly, to be honest with him. If we are naked before him, why do we try to hide stuff? Yeah, he sees every single part, the deepest, darkest recesses. We've gotta let Jesus in, he won't force himself. We have this wonderful gift of prayer to access the Holy of Holies for God just to, to come and fill our lives.

And in closing, I'd like for us to wrap up this series on prayer by taking time now to seek the Lord. In a moment, I'm gonna invite firstly Diane and then Ian to lead us before I close. And. If you're here last week, I wanna, I wanna model this time around the prayer of Jehosaphat that we looked at from two Chronicles chapter 20.

So as we saw last week, his prayer was broken into three distinct parts. We saw. First he prayed a prayer of orientation. If you remember the story, they're faced with this imminent threat, potential annihilation. And in the midst of all that fear, what was Jehosphaphat able to do? He was able to orient himself by magnifying the Lord.

And that's how we want to begin. Diane's gonna lead us in a prayer of orientation and praise. Josphat then recalled the ways in which God had blessed the nation of the past. And as I said, faith grows as we remember God's faithfulness. Amen. Amen. The God who answered prayer yesterday is the same God who reigns today.

And so Ian's gonna lead us in a prayer of thanksgiving for the life of this church. And lastly, Jehoshaphat, he confessed their total dependence on God. I love that verse, verse 12 from two Chronicles 20. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you absolute dependence and humility and so I'll close with a prayer for the future.

Di if you could come and Oh, I'll bring the mic to you. Okay.

Pray with me. We read in two Chronicles 20, verse six, oh Lord God of our Fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven. You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations power and might are in your hand and no one can withstand you. Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name. We do indeed worship you and praise you.

For you alone are worthy of all praise and worship. There is no other like you. You are all mighty God. Awesome and Holy King of Kings and Lord of Lords the great. I am unique the. The one who is all powerful, all knowing and everywhere, all together, holy and the only one who is able to forgive sin. You are the only reason that we are here together.

We've come together here to bring you our praise and our worship as your children, and then we do it in the precious name of Jesus Christ our savior. Amen.

Ian, do you wanna come? Yeah. Um, if you're able to, thank you. Di Ian's gonna lead us in a prayer of Thanksgiving for the past.

Let's continue before our God, our father, we've just heard this message. And you do know all things, and you knew back in the end of 1950s, in the early sixties, this was a new developing area in Perth. We thank you. You knew all that and you had plans. We thank you father, one of the first men here, former missionary mission, vision.

To plant a church or help the church grow in this area. One of the first pastors here was an evangelist. He did a, he did tent evangelism. Father, you had it all planned. We thank you that you had the plans and father, there's been strong biblical teaching come through this church. We thank you for that.

And Father, there was very strong Sunday schools and youth groups reaching into the community. Yes. Father, the Lord's Church was reaching out through a light here on this spot, and Jesus Christ's name was being spread abroad. One stage, the largest Sunday school. In wa, most of those children come from the community.

Father, we thank you. You were spreading the word, and Father, you kept developing your church here, building a foundation for years to come. And father, we thank you that out of this church. Yeah, there's always been people being called and sent, and father, over a period of few years, there was about 14 young people or couples called into Bible college throughout Australia.

They become pastors or they become missionaries overseas throughout the world. Father. From here, you drew out people and sent them off to the world and to different places, into indigenous ministries, into other places in the world that other people might know. Jesus, we thank you for all that you've done down through the years, but Father, sometimes we can lose our vision or lose our focus.

And Father, we stop growing because we've lost our focus. Father, we thank you that we are getting a new focus. Your spirit is working re pointing us strongly towards Jesus and to yourself. And we thank you for the new life that we see new people coming into our midst. But Father. We thank you for this very thing that your throne of grace is open and we believe the life of the church.

An important factor is prayer, and we focus on that now. We thank you, father. We need to build lives, the lives of people. They need a calling from their savior and Lord Jesus. To serve him and to fulfill their purpose as a son of God. And we thank you that you rebuilding your working and you in each one of our lives, in new lives of Father, you know all things and you'll continue to build and create.

A strong light for this world around us just here that you'll draw many people, dear yourself, through Jesus Christ and through the life of this church. Thank you for the church. Thank you for each person in the church. Thank you for Jamie and Claudia and their family. Thank you for everyone that's involved.

Continue your work of grace. We thank you. You've begun a good work and you'll carry on that good work. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

I'm gonna close with a prayer for the future. We have our bookmarks, if you could take those away and pray day by day. Let us now close by asking God to bless us as we think of the future of this church. Almighty God, we come before you, like Jehosaphat and the people of Judah did humbled and aware of our weakness.

Father, we've embarked on the season of planting seeds for the future of this church. And Lord, we admit that in many different ways. We don't know what to do. There's decisions before us that exceed our wisdom. Burdens and capacities that outweigh our strength battles that are ours that you know that are not ours, they're yours to fight.

Father, in all these things, we thank you that you are our refuge and our help teach us so Lord, to wait upon you quite the noise within us that we may hear your still small voice. Show us the steps to take and give us the courage to follow your lead. Father, when fear rises, remind us that you are near or despair.

Whispers, remind us that you are faithful when Pride contempt is to rely on our own plans and our own strength. Remind us that victory belongs to you. Father, may our weakness become the doorway for your strength. May our uncertainty draw us into a deeper dependence on you until your wisdom is revealed.

Father, you know all our needs. The need for gifted people, the need for a next generation who can carry forth the life and ministry of this church. Father, we commit these needs to you, Lord, as you lead us. As you. Bless us, teach us to praise you. Let us testify that when we were helpless, the Lord was our helper.

When we were surrounded, the Lord encircled us When we did not know what to do, the Lord made a way. Jesus, our eyes are on you. The author and perfecter of our faith. Be our vision, be our strength, be our peace. In your mighty and matchless name we pray. Amen. Thank you.